


River's Handbag

by Black_Crystal_Dragon



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-16
Updated: 2011-05-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 20:17:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14340132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Crystal_Dragon/pseuds/Black_Crystal_Dragon
Summary: The contents of River’s handbag save the day and flummox the Doctor.





	River's Handbag

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lady_leonida](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=lady_leonida).



> Set during Amy and Rory's time in the TARDIS.
> 
> Archived to AO3 16 April 2018.

They are in a lives-hanging-in-the-balance situation again. Really, it’s just another day for the Doctor. Except that it isn’t because River is there. It always feels a little bit special when River’s there.  
  
He wipes the stupid grin off and focuses. Right. Angry locals. Running. Possibly hiding, preferably finding the TARDIS in the maze of corridors that had turned out to be the female-only wing of the palace. At least Amy and Rory were safe. Safe being a relative term. They had been captured and by now will be in the dungeons, awaiting trial – but since today is a national holiday that won’t happen for another twelve-or-so hours, at the least. He thinks he probably should thank his lucky stars when he has a minute.  
  
He and River spin around another corner and dash through a door. He sonics it locked behind them and turns to keep running, but comes up against a dead end: a floor-to-ceiling pane of glass that shows quite clearly that they are miles high, clouds fanning out below their feet and drifting almost like snow against the outer walls of the tower. A moment later, he hears their pursuers quite literally hit the other side of the door, trapping them in.  
  
River sighs and crouches down in a shimmer of TARDIS-blue silk. The Doctor is fairly certain that the ship had laid that one out for her on purpose, her way of giving River the official stamp of approval, possibly an attempt to give him a shove in the right direction. The TARDIS was good at those, figurative and literal. On landing here, she had even decided to lurch the control room floor hard enough to shove the two of them into each other’s arms. The Doctor is still mulling over the option of actually taking his ship’s hints. She might know what’s best for him, but he has to put up some kind of token protest.  
  
He looks down at River and double-takes. “Where did all that come from?”  
  
She has produced a large grappling hook and a device he doesn’t immediately recognise, which River is attaching to a long piece of rope. He looks around, but there are no handy storage cupboards to be seen. She doesn’t even look up. “Handbag. Could you open the window, sweetie?”  
  
Wordlessly, the Doctor pulls out his screwdriver, flicks it to the correct setting and points it at the glass until it splinters into an ice-white array of cracks. All the time, though, he looks at River’s handbag. It is a petite clutch, as blue as her dress and covered in sequins. More importantly, it is _too small_ to have had all of the equipment in it. He taps the glass with the end of the screwdriver and it splinters outwards. “How –”  
  
“No time.” River hands him the rope and fixes the grappling hook onto the window ledge. “That door won’t hold them forever.”  
  
He picks up her bag, frowning. It feels like any other handbag: normal. He’s about to open it when River plucks it out of his grip and takes his hand.  
  
“Ready?” she asks, a little breathless, and the Doctor remembers why he so enjoys her company. Her hair is loose and she looks as dangerous as she is beautiful. She doesn’t even let him reply before she launches herself out of the window, dragging him after. He loves that she doesn’t scream as they tumble into freefall.  
  
Then something – the device she put on the rope, presumably – kicks in and their descent slows enough that when the rope snaps taut it doesn’t burn the skin off their hands or dislocate their shoulders. He smiles at River.  
  
“Window, sweetie,” River says sweetly, nodding at the wall beside them where another window is waiting. He flips the sonic screwdriver over in the air and catches it, still grinning, and points it at the glass. River squeezes his hand. The window shatters inwards, leaving the floor strewn with glass, but River seems undeterred as she steps into the corridor, closely followed by the Doctor.  
  
This part of the palace turns out to be safe, though the Doctor has to flash the psychic paper at a few guards. Within minutes, they find themselves back inside the TARDIS.  
  
He’s not sure if it’s the thrill of the chase or the exhilaration of escape that makes River kiss him. He thinks it’s curiosity that makes him kiss her back. As River – forceful, demanding, _impossible_ , why does he always do whatever she wants? – drags him across the TARDIS control room and down the corridors towards a room very few of his companions know about, the ship itself hums at him. Every time he makes contact with a wall, the metal feels warm and vibrates under his skin, reassuring, encouraging.  
  
Well, they have twelve-or-so hours before they need to really worry about Amy and Rory, the Doctor thinks. River pulls away from his mouth and does something to the shell of his ear that makes his knees buckle and the Doctor reminds himself: they are in the TARDIS. They have all the time in the world. He is fairly sure that the sound the ship makes as she slides open the door to his room ahead of them is laughter. He finds, as River sloughs off her silk dress and goes to the bed with her sidearm still strapped into a thigh-holster, that he doesn’t care.  


*

Later – much later, after Rory and Amy have been rescued and excuses have been made for their hours-long wait in the cells – the Doctor creeps back to his room when River isn’t looking. He finds her bag lying where she left it, atop the silk dress still pooled on the carpet. He crouches, casting a furtive glance towards the door, and picked it up. It still weighs no more than it ought to. It looks no more special than any other bag. He flips it open.  
  
A dainty purse. Lipstick, which he mentally labels ‘DO NOT TOUCH’ in red capitals. A spray-bottle that might contain perfume and might contain paralytic alien venom, or anything in between. He decides not to touch that, either, and pushes it aside to feel around the bottom of the bag. He frowns as his fingers don’t come into contact with anything.  
  
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to root through a lady’s handbag?”  
  
The Doctor looked up guiltily. He hadn’t even heard the door. He’s fairly sure, now, that River and the TARDIS are ganging up on him.  
  
“It’s bigger on the inside,” he says softly as he withdraws his hand from the bag. He stands up and hands it to River. She tosses it aside and drapes her arms around his shoulders. He raises an eyebrow, which she ignores.  
  
“Of course it is.” She says it as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “All handbags are.”  
  
“But,” the Doctor begins. He wants to know where she got the bag and, more importantly, who from because TARDIS-like technology is precious – but then she does that thing with her tongue and his earlobe, and he forgets about the bag altogether.

*

He remembers it only after River has slunk off to take a shower. He sits up in his bed and looks for the blue sequined clutch. It has gone, but in its place there is a canvas satchel with a broad shoulder-bag, which matched the second of River’s outfits now decorating his floor. He is about to retrieve his screwdriver from his jacket to properly analyse the thing when the TARDIS hums in a way that he has come to know as warning. He sighs and drops his jacket back onto the floor. It’s probably _spoilers_ anyway.  
  
“All right, dear,” he says, reaching out to absently pat the wall, and then stroke it, allowing River and the TARDIS to have their secret.


End file.
